


The Witching Hour

by Aviss



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon - Book, Celebrations, F/M, Fluff, Tarth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24885220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aviss/pseuds/Aviss
Summary: It's Crone Night in Tarth, the night of witches and wishes and celebrations but Jaime is a Lannister and Lannisters don't wish for things.Except tonight is magic, anything is possible.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 82
Kudos: 284





	The Witching Hour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ImberReader](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImberReader/gifts).



> This came to life during a chat with ImberReader, turns out they celebrate something similar to what we do in Spain for St John's Night.  
> Noche de San Juan, Noche de Brujas, where there covens meet and there are bonfires all over the coast. In some places they vault over the bonfires. The bit about the wish is made up, though.  
> I thought it would be a perfect celebration for an island like Tarth.  
> Feliz San Juan!!!

Jaime had never seen Crone Night celebrations like the ones in Tarth. 

Crone Night had never been one of Jaime's favourite nights, back in the Rock when they were children Cersei liked to pretend it was a night where magic was real. She had collected candles with different scents and had whispered things to them in made-up Old Valyrian as they burned, her eyes reflecting the flames and burning from within. She had done that every year until the day Tywin had caught her and scolded her for behaving like a commoner, Lannisters didn't whisper their desires to the flames, they burned other houses to get what they wanted. 

It was a lesson Cersei learned only too well. 

Jaime never cared much for wishes when he was young, he already had everything he wanted by his side. When he donned the White Cloak, and later when he stained it red in blood and dishonour, Jaime had learned that most wishes were poison. 

Here, in Tarth, a lifetime later, Jaime was shocked and awed at the scale of the celebration. Everywhere he could see, all the sandy beaches of the island were illuminated against the night sky by the tallest bonfires he had ever seen. What looked like every single person on the island was there, having shed their winter clothes and clad in light garments, there were gallons of ale and mead and sweet cider provided by the Evenstar, as well as enough grain and game to fill every stomach around, and all around there were only songs, and laughs, and summer finally blooming after a long and deadly winter.

Jaime finally felt the last of the north's frost leaving his bones and shivered at the pleasure of it. 

He wasn't going to begrudge the people of Tarth their merriment, they deserved it, all the people of Westeros did, or at least those who had survived both the Long Night and the War of the Dragons. Tarth had suffered more than most under the Golden Company and the False Dragon King. They had also worked relentlessly against them from the inside, led by the Evenstar in the kind of insidious warfare that demoralized and consumed armies from within, and once they had expelled the invaders from their shores, they had dedicated the same stubbornness to rebuilding their island, erasing all the signs of Fake Aegon's brief and bloody conquest from their soil. 

It was easy to see that Brienne was a favoured daughter of this island, she had inherited her pigheadedness from here.

She was somewhere around, Jaime was sure of it. She had dragged Jaime down to the beach with her and Podrick, citing her duties as the next Evenstar as her reason to be partying. Jaime knew the excuse for what it was, same as would anyone who could see the way her eyes shone looking at the bonfires and how her mouth titled up in a smile, one of the very few Jaime had seen on her face in the years they had travelled together. 

For a long time, while they traversed the Riverlands and the Vale, and later when they went to Winterfell, Brienne had been incapable of looking at Jaime with anything but guilt. Guilt and sorrow and more guilt, it had made Jaime cruel and irritable, and she more miserable if possible making him angrier and crueller. Those first months were not something he wanted to remember, he had often wondered why he was following the dour maid in the quest he had given her, but he had never parted from her side, even after their encounter with Lady Stoneheart. It had eased later while they fought The Others, while she trained him to fight with his left so they could both survive. By the end of that fight, they were friends. Real friends. By the end of the Dragons War, after they had marched south to try to reach Tarth and they had become embroiled in the fight for the throne, Jaime knew what he felt went beyond friendship, it went beyond anything he had felt before and he didn't know what to do with it.

Renouncing to his title and lands had been easy once King Jon was sitting on the throne looking at him like he didn't know what to do with him. 

Jaime had sworn himself to Tarth and the Evenstar, and would have sworn himself to Brienne if only he had had anything to offer her beyond his love and devotion, something that had never been enough before.

A voice by his side took him out of his musing. "Take some ale, Jaime." A jar was shoved into his hand before he could react to the very solid presence by his side. Jaime grabbed and drank deeply from it, swallowing his words along with the ale. It was bad form to curse at your liege lord, even when Selwyn Tarth was as far removed from Tywin Lannister and Winterfell was from Evenfall. 

"Lord Selwyn," he said with a slight nod after a second drink. He had not noticed how parched he was before, and the ale was smooth and soothing. 

" _Just Selwyn_ ," he grumbled, the way he had been doing for the past two moons since Brienne and Jaime arrived. Jaime had expected to be ostracized and given the worst tasks available on arrival once Brienne was taken from his side by her duties. It had not happened, Brienne had stayed by his side most of the time and her father had been welcoming and warm. _You're the only reason my child's still a maid and still alive, or so she told me in her letters_ , Selwyn had said, enfolding Jaime in an embrace that robbed his breath and had made his eyes sting. "Tell me, Jaime, do they jump high in the Westerlands on Crone Night?"

They were both looking at the closest bonfire where Podrick had just attempted to jump for the third time only to grind to a halt and roll on the sand, to the accompanying laughter of the people around when he stood back again sheepishly. He would get it by the end of the night, Jaime was sure, Pod wasn't a coward, he just needed some confidence. No coward would have survived what they did, and though Pod was not a child anymore, he was still young and shy. And Jaime knew there was a certain serving wench looking at him and making him trip all over his own feet.

Jaime let out a chuckle, eyes scanning the closest bonfires for Brienne. He thought he saw her one bonfire over dancing with Mylo, the stable boy. Jaime would have been jealous had Mylo not been all of eight namedays and about as tall as Tyrion, as it was, he could do nothing but smile when he saw Brienne picking up the boy in her arms easily for a twirl, her head thrown back in laughter he could hear over the crackle of the burning logs and could feel in his bones. "No bonfires to jump there, at least not for as long as I've been alive." For as long as Tywin had been Lord Lannister, because his Lord father had been allergic to fun and anything that might make them look weak or common. Obviously, enjoying themselves with the smallfolk was weak in the eyes of Tywin.

Selwyn turned to look at him, eyebrow up his forehead. "How did you make wishes, then?"

Jaime straightened his spine and looked at Selwyn in his best imitation of his father's imperious tone. "Lannisters don't want for things, they take them."

"I see," he said, his eyes, so similar to Brienne's, regarded Jaime steadily and without pity. "Well, Tarths do wish for things. I've been jumping bonfires since I learned how to walk." There were some small fires scattered among the big ones, nothing but little pits where toddlers holding on their parents or siblings hands flew over the small flames, their cries of laughter filling the beach. Brienne was now in one of the little pits, her height making her easy to spot, one of the myriad children that were always underfoot in Evenfall in her arms, she ran and jumped over the pit, twirling when she landed and put the children on the ground, only to have another one try to climb all over her. Jaime couldn't take his eyes off her. Here, in the darkness of this magic night, illuminated by the yellow and red light of the fires Brienne looked ethereal and almost magical herself. The shadows hid the disfiguring scar on her face, the one she hated because she believed made her so much uglier and unlovable, and the fire gave a new light to her eyes, "Brienne learned to jump like that, in Galladon's arms when they were both children, she learned how to make wishes to the Crone in the fire then. It is still her favourite celebration, even when they are rarely granted." 

He gave Jaime a pointed look, one he could feel burning on the side of his face even without turning to look. 

"Sometimes is better that way," Jaime said remembering Cersei's longing of a crown in her head, Jaime's dreams of knighthood and honour. "Wishes can be twisted into nightmares."

He felt, more than he heard, Selwyn's sigh. "Not the ones made to the Crone in the fire. You might not see her in the flames, but the Crone won't trick you. Go ahead, Jaime. Make your wish. _Tonight is magic_." He turned to leave. 

"Selwyn," Jaime stopped him, turning fully to look at him. It was the first time he used just his name. "Have you ever had a wish granted by the Crone?"

"Many of them," he said with another look at Brienne. "The last one is standing there ready to make her own." He looked pointedly at Jaime again. "I hope it comes true."

Jaime had no time to reply, to ask him to clarify what he meant. It had sounded like he believed it was in Jaime's hands to grant it, and he gave his blessing. He finally moved from his spot, his empty jar of ale begging for a replacement, the heat of the fires and the warmth of the night making him even thirstier than he'd been before. 

"Ser Jaime, come jump with us," Pod called him, swaying a bit on unsteady feet. He had just vaulted over the fire to loud cheers and acclaim, only to trip and fall on his ass when one of the girls stole a kiss from him. Jaime laughed and approached them, taking the new jar pressed into his hands and drinking. 

He looked around hoping to see Brienne, she had been coming in this direction, turned fully to face the fire when he heard a chant of her name picking up volume around it. He saw her coming through the flames from the other side, her image superimposed with the one in his memory of Brienne wreathed in blue flame in his dream so many years ago. This one was real, though, and so much better than anything he could have ever imagined. She landed next to him, dropping to one knee and looking up at him in the same breath. Around them, the people exploded on a cheer but Jaime could see nothing but Brienne's eyes, hear nothing but the pounding of his own heart. They stayed like that, frozen, staring into each other's eyes, for a second too long. Then Brienne unfolded to her full height, her cheeks pleasantly flushed with sweet cider and happiness. 

It was a good look on her. 

"Ser Jaime," she said, it seemed that same as he with Selwyn, Brienne was unable to part with the honorific for him unless one of them was about to die. "I haven't seen you jumping tonight, you're not afraid of a little fire are you?"

She was teasing him, the first time since their arrival at the island. Jaime would not admit to anyone that he had missed the closeness they had on the road, and during the wars. They had been inappropriately close, he knew that, and in spite of the rumours, Brienne was still a maid. Jaime would have not dishonoured her, though there was nothing he wanted more than to kiss her. He had wanted for years now. 

"That's not a little fire, my lady," he replied, a smile clear in his voice. 

"I can take you to one of the others if that one is too tall." She pointed at the toddler's firepit and Jaime barked a laugh.

"And are you going to take me in your arms and jump?" She flushed, her pale skin turning blotchy and tinged orange under the firelight, her eyes still sparkling with mirth. "Am I not too big for you?"

" _I'm strong enough_ ," she replied, and both of them could remember Jaime saying those same words to her half a continent and another life away.

"You are." And not just physically, she was the strongest person he had met.

They fell silent for a heartbeat, lost into each other's eyes and their memories, not even the sounds of revelry around them intruding in their moment. It was Pod who did, stumbling into Jaime and breaking the spell, only to run away stuttering apologies a second later. 

"Come on, Ser Jaime, you have to jump. It's Crone Night. You have to make a wish."

" _I wish for you to stop calling me Se_ r," he said, jokingly, because at this point in time he's lost hope of her ever doing that. 

"You haven't jumped, Ser," she protested. "And you don't say it out loud or it won't become true."

"What about you, did you make one before? Has it come true already?" The flush on her cheeks and the way her eyes moved from his eyes to his mouth, her lips parting slightly at the gesture, told Jaime everything he needed to know. 

He wasn't an idiot, he knew she felt something for him the same way he felt it for her. It wasn't a lack of feelings or desire what had kept him from her, he just didn't believe he was what she deserved. But she had made a wish for him on Crone Night, and Jaime might not believe in magic, but he'd seen enough of the world to deny completely that it existed. Tonight was magic, Selwyn had said, and she wanted him. For some reason she wanted him.

"I have a wish to make," he said, looking at her with all he hadn't said in the past years visible in his expression. She breathed in sharply, and Jaime walked away to the other side of the bonfire.

"Ser Jaime is going to vault!" One of Evenfall's servants shouted, and they all picked up a chant of his name the same as they had done before with Brienne's. 

He looked at the fire and imagined what his dream would look like now. It was easy, though, it looked like this night every year for as long as they both lived. It looked like Brienne jumping over the firepits with a toddler in her arms while Selwyn and Jaime looked at her, except this time the child would have her eyes and Jaime's blond curls. It looked like Pod chasing all the skirts in Evenfall while he taught sword fighting to their children, it looked like Brienne sitting on the Evenstar chair with Jaime standing by her right and Pod by her left for many more years. 

He wanted that in a way he had not wanted anything before, and he fixed that image in his mind and took several steps back to get a running start. He ran, seeing that future in the flames and a silhouette like an old woman smiling at him, and when he was close enough to feel the searing heat on his face, he jumped. 

Jaime flew clear out of the flames and felt the heat surround him, then he was on the other side, and Brienne was there. He didn't calculate the distance properly, or Brienne had moved forward while he was on the other side, he all but crashed into her sending both of them sprawling to the sand. They rolled for a minute and when they stopped Jaime was lying on top of her and she was looking at him with the most beautiful smile on her face.

Whatever words were going to come out of her mouth, Jaime didn't hear, he dipped his head down and stole them from her lips. She kissed back at once, hesitantly and awkwardly, like one who had never done it before. Brienne was a quick study, though, her lips parting and her tongue sliding against his enticingly. She tasted of the sweet cider and the honeycakes she had before, and under that, something sharper and richer and addicting that Jaime already knew he'd spend his entire life trying to name. They kissed for another minute, then Jaime pulled them apart as far as he was willing to go, just enough for their foreheads to rest together and their lungs to draw breath. 

"Did you see the Crone in the fire, Jaime?" Brienne asked, granting him the wish he'd joked about before. "Did she give you what you wanted?"

He thought to say that yes, he'd got what he wanted, but that wasn't true. Not really. "Not yet," he admitted. "You got yours, didn't you?" Brienne's eyes moved to his lips again confirming his guess. "Then I think she'll grant me mine."

He pressed his lips against her quickly, for courage. Lannisters didn't wish for things, but he had never been a good Lannister according to his father. He did want something, and tonight was magic, anything was possible.

"Will you consent to be my wife, Brienne?"

The Crone gave him everything that night.

...


End file.
